Duty
by muggleborn.dragon.ryder
Summary: Harry reflects on his duties. Set in that space of time between the end of OOTP and the beginning of HBP. Rated T just in case.


_Duty_

**A/N: I don't even know what this is anymore. Um, it's set in that space of time between the end of OOTP and the beginning of HBP, when Harry was with the Dursleys right after Sirius died. I really liked Harry's line to Dumbledore about, "I can't lock myself away or crack up. Sirius wouldn't have wanted that, would he?" It gives us a little insight into how much Harry really struggled with Sirius' death, and of course I loved Harry and Sirius' relationship, so yeah :3 and I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and how Harry is likely to be one of those people who keeps living out of duty. He feels a duty to everyone in his life, living or dead, to keep going, so that's what he's going to do. I probably should have mentioned Hagrid...he has a duty to Hagrid, too, right? But I felt I kind of covered that when I talked about Ron and Hermione. Anyway, please read and review. I'm open to feedback. **

* * *

><p>Strangely, when Harry thought of the word 'duty', his parents were the first two people to enter his head. I mean, he knew they were gone. Everyone still talked about how brave they were, what a shame they'd had to go so young, they'd been such assets in the fight against You-Know-Who…<p>

But in the end, when Harry thought of them, usually late at night so nobody would notice his silence, he thought of them not as fighters or protectors or anything like that – he thought of them simply as his parents. James had given his life for his family, and Lily had given her life for her child. Harry was alive because of them, and that's why he thought of them when he thought of his duties. His first duty was to them, not just as their son, but because they had died so he could live. He needed to keep living, if only to fulfill their wishes, because it was the only thing he could do for the parents that were now gone.

His second duty, he knew, was to Ron and Hermione. They were his closest friends, and he looked out for them as much as they looked out for him. Who would be there, if he was gone, to make up completely ridiculous answers for his Divination homework with Ron? Who would be there for Hermione to talk to when she and Ron were in one of their fights? His second duty wasn't a duty to the dead; it was a duty to the living, and a duty borne of friendship.

He had other duties, too: a duty to Dumbledore, because the man still believed he could save the world. He had a duty to himself, for the little things, like doing well on his OWLs. He had duties to himself about the big things, too, like to keep on living. He had a duty to Hogwarts, the only place he had ever called home, the place he could depend on to always be there, no matter how bad things got. Hogwarts was unshakable and completely infallible, because that was what homes were meant to be.

He had a duty to the whole Wizarding World. The duty to try his hardest to defeat Voldemort, even if he couldn't. Even if he died trying, he still had to try, because this was duty, his destiny, the destiny he did not want. It was the only duty that he had that he had never wanted. But he had been reading the _Daily Prophet, _and he knew the Ministry was trying to paint him out to be some big hero now. He didn't want to be a hero, but if he was going to accept this last, terrible duty, he was going to have to put up with things like that being said. This duty wasn't the one that kept him going – it was just along for the ride.

Because now he knew he had a duty to somebody else, too. Another duty to the dead, of which there were too many. A duty to Sirius Black. His brilliant green eyes burned with tears when his thoughts turned to his godfather. Killed by Bellatrix Lestrange. He had a duty to his godfather, too, even if Sirius wasn't around to see him fulfill it. He knew Sirius would never have wanted him to do this, to shut himself away from the world, or play with the idea of suicide, or…or…Sirius wouldn't have wanted this.

It wasn't his duty to rejoin Sirius in the world of the dead – it was his duty to Sirius' memory, which lived on. He had to make sure people remembered his godfather in a good light. Too many bad things had been spoken about him while he was alive – he deserved to rest assured, in death, that the story was being set straight.

It was his duty to the people in his life that he had lost that kept him from completely losing himself. It was a duty to the dead that kept him living.


End file.
